1906: San Francisco is destroyed by an earthquake so powerful that it is felt from Coos Bay, Oregon, to Los Angeles, and as far east as central Nevada. What became known as the San Francisco earthquake and fire struck at 5:12 a.m., when the San Andreas Fault gave way, tearing the earth wide open from […]

1942: A Japanese long-range submarine surfaces off the California coast and uses its 5½-inch deck gun to shell an oil refinery near Santa Barbara. The attack, which lasted about 20 minutes, caused little damage to the Ellwood refinery. But it helped to stoke fears, which had existed since the raid on Pearl Harbor 10 weeks […]

An inversion layer settles over the rust belt town of Donora, Pennsylvania, trapping industrial pollution in the atmosphere. When it clears six days later, 20 people are dead, another 50 are dying and hundreds will live out their days with permanently damaged lungs.